


The new seduction

by Marium



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Crack, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, feeble attempts at humor, kaysanova vs technology, old men yell at cloud, this is stupid as fuck please forgive me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marium/pseuds/Marium
Summary: Joe and Nicky like to keep up with the times. The times don't always agree with them.(or; two old men from the eleventh century discover grindr and Nile thinks it's incredibly unfair that she can't post this on social media.)
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 25
Kudos: 215





	The new seduction

Nile is sitting on one of the couches of the safehouse, legs crossed and eyes on her screen as she lazily navigates youtube, when she hears an app notification loudly popping up a few feet away from her. She blinks a few times and looks up at its source. **  
**

Joe and Nicky are on the couch across from her, half-lying on each other as each of them reads their own book. Now, however, Nicky is grasping at his phone, slight grimace on his face as he looks at it, then exchanges a look with Joe, who sports a similar expression. A moment later they nod at each other and Nicky sweeps his thumb across the screen.

Their heads come together as they both focus on the screen, a certain degree of curious apprehension on their faces. They stay like that for a moment, then Nicky’s grimace comes back stronger than before as he tosses the phone to the edge of the couch. Joe just huffs, eyes narrowed, and his hand flies to Nicky’s head, gently massaging his scalp as he pulls the man closer.

It’s a few moments before either of them take notice of Nile’s fixed gaze. Joe looks curious, relaxing his hold on his partner a bit as he shifts his attention.

‘Is something the matter, Nile? You need anything?’

Nile now realizes she’s been staring, and quickly breaks her eyes away for a single moment before coming back, now with a teasing, somewhat incredulous grin on her lips.

‘I had gay friends back in Chicago, you know’ she comments easily. Nicky frowns in confusion.

‘You have gay friends now. We’re right here.’

‘I know, I know, not saying otherwise. Just… Some things are familiar.’ Neither of them seem to have a clue what she’s getting at, if their deepening frown is anything to go by. Nile’s amusement grows exponentially. ‘All I’m saying is, I know what a grindr notification sounds like.’

In the five months she’s been part of the team, Nile has barely ever seen Nicky show the slightest indication of nerves, let alone flustered. He’s about as impassible as a marble statue, but without the hard coldness to it. Now, however, she’s seeing with her own two eyes how a deep red quickly takes hold of his cheeks in the few seconds it takes for him to fully register what she’s said and hastily look down. He unconsciously leans towards Joe, who isn’t flustered, per se, but for once in his life seems to be not immediately sure what to say, mouth opening to start saying something, only to repeatedly decide to change his wording, then just shutting up with his lips turned a thin line.

‘What the hell is a green deer?’ Andy asks from the other corner of the room, where she’s taken off her headphones to pay attention to the current commotion. Nile brings her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh when Nicky groans in response.

‘Nothing important’ Joe grumbles lowly. Andy’s eyebrow rises, an equally amused and bemused expression hinting on her face, but she merely shrugs and puts her headphones back on. Nile can hear the music from here, and she’s going to have to remind her again that no healing means she can, in fact, go deaf if she keeps doing that.

For the time being, though…

‘Grindr’ she repeats, a delighted tone to her voice. The word seems to be some sort of spell that makes the both of them shrink on themselves, and she supposes it’s a bit mean, but they have behaved like the dignified, nearly-mystic millenium-old warriors they are every moment Nile has shared with them. She’s not going to let the chance to see them embarrassed pass so quickly.

‘There’s no shame in it, you know’ she says, and she means it. But she’ll admit that she says it knowing it’ll make Joe groan softly as he hides his face in his hands, and Nicky petulantly crosses his arms while pointedly looking away. ‘I mean it! I’m not going to judge you for your… Pastimes.’

‘This isn’t- This is not-’ Nicky stutters, brighter red if it’s even possible, and Nile is going to commit that look to memory because who knows when it’s going to come back. He wildly gestures with his hands, as if trying to grasp the words.

‘We were just curious, is all’ Joe supplies in a low but hasty mumble, nearly pouting and looking anywhere but at her. She raises her eyebrow.

‘I’d say you two are a bit late to be curious about this sort of thing. I doubt there’s anything you’ve got left to learn about this stuff. Well, being vanilla is okay in any case, even if it’s for a thousand years. Whatever suits you.’

Nicky stares at her, and opens his mouth to say something only to stop himself at the last second. He takes a long moment and in the end he settles, calmly, for ‘We were at a bar the other day, and we heard that grindr is the new space for gay men. We just wanted to check it out, keep up with the times.’

‘It wasn’t exactly what we expected it to be’ Joe adds, dryly. Nile takes a moment to stop herself from bursting into laughter. God, right now she really wishes social media wasn’t off limits to her, this is comedy gold.

She rises to her feet and throws herself at the other couch in between them. Joe and Nicky automatically make space for her, but they stretch their arms behind the couch to hold hands. They look at her curiously and she grins while she makes a beckoning gesture to Nicky.

‘Let me see.’

‘Nile!’ he nearly shrieks, half-scandalized. Nile is reminded that despite looking like he’s on the flower of life, at the point where maturity hasn’t started chipping away at youthful vigor, he is, after all, a grandpa older than most countries he steps into. Unfazed by this, she gives him a look that has him begrudgingly handling her his phone while muttering something under his breath.

Despite their complains, they seem very interested in whatever she’s going to do, both of their heads touching hers as they look at the device in her hands. She can’t help but be endeared by Nicky’s phone: His wallpaper is a pic of Joe sleeping (she’s willing to bet her next 30 lives that the opposite is true for Joe’s phone), and beside a sudoku app, the phone is pretty much barren. Except for grindr.

‘You should expect some, uh, unsavory things in there’ Joe mutters, somewhat apprehensive. Nile gives him an unimpressed look.

‘I’m not a child, Joe, no matter how many times you all say it. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen more than you had at my age.’

However, she goes directly to their profile. It’s the only thing that holds her curiosity, really, everything else has a very low chance of being anything she hasn’t already seen in her other friends’ phones. It is adorably innocent, considering what they knew about the app. It’s got a selfie of the two of them with Joe kissing Nicky’s cheek, another selfie of Joe at the beach with that backwards cap of his and sunglasses, and then a third one of Nicky reading, which she’s pretty sure Joe took while he wasn’t aware of it.

The profile is pretty much empty otherwise. The description is a mere ‘curious couple’, which, again, is adorably innocent considering she knows who they are. Not so much to anyone else, though.

Just in that moment, just as she’s about to check the chats just to drag the experience out, the phone rings with a new message. She opens it and-

‘Wow’ she says as she drops the phone, and you know what, she had forgotten the part about just how forward some guys could be. Had repressed it, most likely.

‘I know’ Nicky wails, picking up the phone and putting it at a safe distance. ‘We’ve gotten so many of those. And people who call Joe ‘daddy’. And asking about our, huh, positions. We keep expecting something a bit more… Mild. Just friendly. But no luck.’

‘We tried to start a few conversations, with some of the more, umm, dressed guys’ Joe continues, voice conveying a deep desolation within his soul. ‘It never goes over five minutes before they ask us if we want… Well. I’m not going to repeat it.’

Nile is, once more, struggling to keep the laughter inside herself. The sulky look they both give her has the laugh finally escaping her. ‘You are two attractive, young-looking men’ she says once she’s got her air back. ‘Of course guys are going to be interested. I think at this point you’ve figured out what guys are looking for in here.’

There is a brief silence. ‘Don’t get us wrong, it’s great there’s enough freedom for this… Thing, to exist’ Nicky says, carefully choosing his words, but more serene than he’d been a handful minutes ago. ‘It would have been unthinkable a handful decades ago in a country like this. It’s just not what we were expecting.’

‘It used to be about romance’ Joe adds, still somewhat sulky and looking at the phone like it had personally insulted him. ‘There used to be seduction, yearning, poetry. Courtship has changed a lot since we were young, we know, but this just skips it altogether. It’s lacking in taste, is all.’

Nile could repeat what the app was for and that there were other places they might find something more suitable to their tastes, but another, far more important thought crashes into her mind. She smirks.

‘You know I’m going to have to notify Copley about this, right?’

They both look like they’ve seen a ghost. ‘You absolutely don’t’ Nicky mutters, pale.

‘I absolutely do. No social media at all, remember?’

‘We were going to delete it anyway’ Joe begs. ‘We’ll do it right now in front of you.’

Nile pretends to think about it for about five seconds. ‘But what if someone has saved those pics of you?’

The look of dispair on their faces intensifies. ‘They can do that?’

Nile has no option but to roll onto the floor as she laughs harder than she has in a whole year.

**Author's Note:**

> this is dumb as fuck and I have no excuse. I'm sorry


End file.
